20: Phantoms of the Card Table: Confessions of a Cardsharp, David Britland & Gazzo

James Randy's book a few weeks ago re-spawned my interest in magic. Some reading on lybrary.com, I think, got me curious about Dai Vernon, which led to S.W. Erdnase's The Expert at the Card Table (which I haven't read yet, because it was slow in coming), and that naturally led to Eddie McGuire and Walter Irving Scott.

So.

This was the first of the books I ordered to arrive, so it got read first. It's a mix of history and biography, telling the Scott-stories of Vernon, McGuire, Cardini, and Gazzo. Was Scott a cardsharp? Who wrote Erdnase? Was Vernon a jerk? Etc. Good reading if you're interested in the subject, but not written well enough to draw in anyone who doesn't care already, I suspect.

The final chapter is a commentary on McGuire's Phantom of the Card Table, the MS in which he published many of Scott's methods. The sleights are not easy.

19: Jeopardy!: ...What Is Quiz Book 1?

"Featuring Answers and Questions from the Greatest Quiz Show in History."

First of all: punctuating that title/subtitle combination is a nightmare. (Hey, Ken Jennings ran into a similar problem recently!)

Second: yeah, it's just a book of questions and answers, or, if you're a Jeopardy! purist, answers and questions.

Third: I read this a while ago, but didn't feel like it counted as a book you "read". Then again, that's of course nonsense, isn't it? I read the damn' thing, so it's going on the list. In fact, I read it with more attention than I do most other books--and I keep re-reading the questions I marked as missed. I may have slacked off in high school and college, but I'm serious about studying now!

Fourth: it's 12 shows worth of questions. It's not really a lot of reading, is it?

18: Conjuring, James Randi, Esq

While looking through the Games section of Feldman Books in Menlo Park, CA, I ran across some magic texts. This is the one I picked up. A wizard-by-wizard history of conjuring, with the excellent subtitle "Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who Have Perpetrated These Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in Short, Magic!"

So, good times. A little shallow at times, but that's what you get when you cram this long an era into one book. Good place to see lots of names for the first time.

17: Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic's Guide to Life in the Grid, Stanley Newman

Newman is a tosser. He's the editor of the Newsday crossword and takes himself and crosswords way too seriously. Also, unlike, say, Shortz, he's a cantankerous jerk who enjoys ripping into people he disagrees with (like late Times crossword editor Maleska).

Anyway, there are some tips on solving crosswords quicker, and lots of propaganda bullshit about The Proper Modern Crossword That Is Fun. Whatever. I'm bored just thinking back to it.